"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fifth Saturday of our cruise, I waited till the changing of the watch; then I stole noiselessly upon deck, and secreted myself behind a life-boat which hung at the side of the vessel. The helmsman was nodding silently upon his tiller; two seamen sat motionless upon the bow, and the lookout party in the crow's-nest talked mutteringly of our ill-luck as they scanned the horizon. The Northern Lights were pulsing like some great radiating heart, and the sea was alternately flame and shadow. ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... there was a vicious and variable wind in their superior's moral atmosphere, under which his canvas strained or flapped unaccountably. They imagined, to pursue their own figure, that his hand did not grasp the reason tiller with its customary grip, and that his bark was left more or less to the conflicting guidance of other influences. Many a time since his departure from England had the old sailor been stung with remorse at the unwritten tenor of his present commission. He ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... to them, yet there should be no new legislation which would operate to the injury or embarrassment of the large body of respectable artisans and laborers. The mechanic who emigrates to the West and pursues his calling must labor long before he can purchase a quarter section of land, whilst the tiller of the soil who accompanies him obtains a farm at once by the bounty of the Government. The numerous body of mechanics in our large cities can not, even by emigrating to the West, take advantage of the provisions of this bill without entering upon a new occupation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... for the oarsmen; but the seat of honour was in the stern of the boat, and no man filled it better than the transformed Tam. Alert and full of resource, with one hand on the tiller, he leaned over the boat, lengthening or shortening rope for the halter, and regulating the speed of the oarsmen with unerring judgment; giving a staunch swimmer time and a short rope to lean on, or literally dragging the faint-hearted across at full speed; careful then only of ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... ran round the cabin. The fish were placed on an earthenware dish, each man cutting off slices with his jack-knife, and using his bread as a platter. Little was said while the meal went on; but when they went on deck again, the skipper, having put another man at the tiller, while the man released went forward to ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... black, curving horns; and he bore a double-headed axe, besides the sword at his side. He looked round on us—at the men standing silent, at Kenulf, and at me as I stood on the after deck resting on the tiller, and broke into ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... goes,—her topsails in the sun Gleam from the ragged ocean edge, and drop Clean out of sight! So let the traitors go Clean out of mind! We'll think of braver things! Come closer in the boat, my friends. John King, You take the tiller, keep her head nor'west. You Philip Staffe, the only one who chose Freely to share our little shallop's fate, Rather than travel in the hell-bound ship,— Too good an English seaman to desert These crippled comrades,—try ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... started to creep forward. Her husband could not see her. At this moment the sloop took a dreadful plunge. A heavy sea swept over her from stern to bow, completely submerging her. The Captain, who had taken the precaution to lash himself to the deck, in a half-drowned state, held steadily to the tiller. As soon as possible he called to his wife, but no answer came back. He called to Paul, and he too was silent. Was she lost? Had she, in whom all his hopes were placed, been carried into the sea and for ever lost to him on earth? ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... congratulations all round; and the man who had held the tiller exclaimed, as Salve silently grasped ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... "we're getting into the realm of supposition." He paused, looked behind him. A farmer pushing a rotary tiller, bowed politely, trundled ahead. Behind was a young man in a black turban, gold earrings, a black and red vest, white pantaloons, black curl-toed slippers. He bowed, started past. Trimmer held up ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... academic training held aloof. What had they in common with this charlatan who treated the abominable teachings of Walt Whitman symphonically? He could not be a respectable man, even if he were a sane. And then the unlettered tiller of the soil, drunken mechanic and gutter drab all loved his music. What kind of music was it thus to be ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... not turn round and I dared not stop. Words and phrases began repeating themselves in my head as they will under a strain: so I know at sea a man perilously hanging on to the tiller makes a kind of litany of his instructions. The central part was passed, the three-quarters; the tension of that enduring effort had grown intolerable, and I doubted my ability to complete the task. Why? What could prevent me? I cannot say; it was all a bundle of imaginaries. ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... an animal without guile and deceit, innocent, harmless, born to endure labour? In fact, the man is ungrateful, and not worthy of the gifts of the harvest, who could, just after taking off the weight of the curving plough, slaughter the tiller of his fields; who could strike, with the axe, that neck worn bare with labour, through which he had so oft turned up the hard ground, {and} had afforded so ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... drew near the lantern, he saw indeed that they were on the edge of a canal, wherein lay a long black barge, with a boy on horseback waiting on the tow-path, a little ahead of it. On the barge's deck by the tiller an immensely fat boatman leant and smoked his pipe, which he withdrew placidly from his lips as Captain Salt gave the password to the man with the lantern and handed over ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gain. Then unto Gyas' very bones deep burns the wrathful pain; Nor did his cheeks lack tears indeed: forgetting honour's trust, Forgetting all his fellows' weal, Menoetes doth he thrust Headlong from off the lofty deck into the sea adown, And takes the tiller, helmsman now and steering-master grown; He cheers his men, and toward the shore the rudder wresteth round. Menoetes, heavy, hardly won up from the ocean's ground, (For he was old, and floods enow fulfilled his dripping gear,) Made for the holm and sat him down ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... aft, he soon had the tiller in his own hands. The pilot was prepared for what was to follow; and, at a sign from his young commander, the rag of sail that had so long been set was taken in. At that moment, Jasper, watching his time, put the helm up; the head of a staysail ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... on the schooner; I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about; and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I chose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of her boat, with the cloudiness of the sky darkening the misty sea, united to conceal the bold manoeuvre of the cutter. She had almost gained full headway ere an oblique shot, directed by mere chance, struck her stern, tearing the upcurved head of the tiller in the hands of the cabin-boy, and killing him with the splinters. Running to the stump, the captain huzzaed, and steered the reeling ship on. Forced now to hoist back the boat ere giving chase, the stranger was ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... character of Gen. WILLIAM H.F. LEE, late a Representative from the Eighth Congressional district of Virginia, yet I can not permit this occasion to pass and my hand and heart to fail to pay my humble tribute to his memory. Gen. LEE's life had been spent after manhood in arms or as a tiller of the soil. In early life he saw military service as lieutenant in the Sixth Regiment, United States Infantry, and was with Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston in the expedition ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... went the Volsung banners, and on went Sigmund before, And his sword was the flail of the tiller on the wheat of the wheat-thrashing floor, And his shield was rent from his arm, and his helm was sheared from his head: But who may draw nigh him to smite for the heap and the rampart of dead? White went his hair on the wind ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... breeze blowing her hair back from her face, with her hand on the tiller, and with her eager eyes sweeping the surface of the ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... of motherhood deserve notice. We have seen the hopes that came to Eve, and beheld their realization in and through Christ. The trials were born of sin. Eve's eldest child, Cain, possessed a narrow, selfish nature. He was a tiller of the ground. Abel was a keeper of the sheep. The first born met this curse in the soil. The second born looked forward to the restoration. In process of time Cain brought of the fruit of the ground. Tradition has it that he brought what was left of his food, of light and tempting things, flax ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... time I've seen him sailing along with ne'er a watch on deck at all, he being below aft steering by compass from t' locker, with t' tiller lines ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... they took a rotten old leaky boat they were poor and could afford no other—they took, I say, a rotten old leaky boat whose tiller was loose and whose sails mouldy, and whose blocks were jammed and creaking, and whose rigging frayed, and they boldly set out together into the ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... far as the lower classes had any relation to the upper classes, it was one, thought Shakespeare, of dependence and obligation. It was not the tiller of the soil who fed the lord of the manor, but rather the lord who supported the peasant. Does not the king have to lie awake and take thought for his subjects? Thus Henry V. complains that he ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... taking thirteen days. She was a side-wheeler, a model which still holds favor on the lower lakes, though virtually abandoned on the ocean and on Lake Superior. An oil painting of this little craft, still preserved, shows her without a pilot-house, steered by a curious tiller at the stern, with a smokestack like six lengths of stovepipe, and huge unboxed wheels. She is said to have been a profitable craft, often carrying as many as fifty passengers on the voyage, for which eighteen ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... in some smooth water under shelter and put out our towline; three of my boys jumped ashore and laid hold of it; another with his bamboo boat-hook stood on the bow; the laoban was at the tiller; and I was cooped up useless in the well under the awning. The men started hauling as we pushed out into the sea of waters. The boat quivered, the water leapt at the bow as if it would engulf us; our three men were obviously too ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... in the face of Dalfin that he thought it right that I should take the mail, and so I did. We went with the three suits and the helms back to Bertric, and so put them on, Gerda helping us, and I taking the tiller when it was Bertric's turn. Even in this little while one could see that Heidrek's leading ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... now; all hands on deck! We can get into New Bedford in two days if this wind holds. Nor' west!" shouted the skipper to the man at the tiller. "We'll sup with our old ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... acts in the air. The bow of the boat naturally turns toward the wind, thus relieving the sail of all pressure and keeping it shaking. But if by keeping the main sheet in your hand you hold the sail in a fixed position, and, at the same time, draw the tiller away from the sail, it will gradually fill with air beginning at the hoist or mast end of the sail and impel the boat in the direction in which you are steering. Given a certain direction in which you want to travel, the problem is, by letting out or hauling in your main-sheet, to keep the ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... control of an airplane has to be learned mechanically. Once learned the aviator applies his knowledge intuitively. He "senses" the position and progress of the craft by the feel of the controls, as the man at the yacht's tiller tells mysteriously how she is responding to the breeze by "the feel." Even before the 'plane responds to some sudden gust of wind, or drops into a hole in the air, the trained aviator will foresee precisely what is about to happen. He reads it in some little ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... was executed almost as soon as given. The mate, too, slipped off his seat on to the floor-board, while still retaining hold of the tiller. The next moment the storm struck them. It was well that the boat was still flying through the water with the way full on her; had she been lying motionless she would probably have sunk like a stone under the force of the blow. As it was she leapt forward like a horse under a spur. ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... Nelson replied: "Yes, my backbone is shot through." But he showed no agitation, and as the men carried him below he covered his decorations with a handkerchief, lest the crew should notice them and realize that they had lost their chief, and he gave Hardy an order to see that tiller-lines were rigged on the rudder-head, to replace ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... all very nice," replied Mr. Buller, who sat by the tiller to keep the boat away from the bank, "and I am glad to see you in a boat under any circumstances. Do you know, William, that although I did not plan it, there could not have been a better way to begin your sailing education. Here we glide along, slowly and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... the tiller, down the pilot rolled. Thrice round the billow whirled her, as she lay, Then whelmed below. Strewn here and there behold Arms, planks, lone swimmers in the surges grey, And treasures snatched from Trojan homes away. Now fail the ships wherein Achates ride And Abas; old Aletes' bark gives ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... with two jade-white hands that trembled excessively. On hearing this statement the Celestial Emperor broke at once into a very great laughter, and he laughed loud and long as a tiller of wheat. The Round-Faced Beauty heard it demurely until, catching the Imperial eye, decorum was forgotten and she too laughed uncontrollably. So they continued, and finally the Emperor leaned back, drying the tears in his eyes ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... quick!" I cried. "Let it alone," said he, snapping together his jack-knife; "it's as good as a best bower-anchor. Now I'll take the tiller, Georgie. Strong little hand," said he, bending so that I didn't see his face. "And lucky it's good as strong. It's saved us all.—My God, Georgie! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... the tiller, and soon the Searchlight was thrown over and was again dipping her nose in the long ocean swells. The wind had died away only to freshen more than ever, and the chase now ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... spoon such as Kanakas use, or the dusky globe of an incandescent lamp that has glowed out its life in the state-room of some ocean liner, or a broom of Japanese make, a coal-basket, a "fender," a tiger nautilus shell, an oar or a rudder, a tiller, a bottle cast away fat out from land to determine the strength and direction of ocean currents, the spinnaker boom of a yacht, the jib-boom of a staunch cutter. Once there was a goodly hammer cemented by the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... which horses and cattle in the towns are mainly fed, and it is loaded on to the boats in a huge pyramidical pile carried upon planks which considerably overhang the boat's sides. The steersman is placed upon the top of this stack, and is enabled to guide his vessel by a long pole lashed to the tiller, and it is curious to notice that the "tibbin," though finely chopped, does not appear ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... take the tiller this time!" he said. "The bottom seems to be shoal all about here. And if you and Miss Everton will sit a little forward, Hilda, you will be more comfortable; I fear I cannot help dripping like hoary Nereus all over ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... friend, for the hint," said the lieutenant, as he took his place at the tiller-ropes, "but I shall have a look at the Gaylet Cove, ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... tiller in my hand. The end of those men seemed so horrible that I forgot for the instant ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... sit too much to the rear and depress the stern, and row with the stem lifted up, sniffing the air. The whole crowd of boats on hire were exactly the same; in short, they were built for woman and not for man, for lovely woman to recline, parasol in one hand and tiller ropes in the other, while man—inferior man—pulled and pulled and pulled as an ox yoked to the plough. They could only be balanced by man and woman, that was the only way they could be trimmed on an even keel; they were like scales, in which the weight on one side must be counterpoised ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... Manuel's way o' thinkin'. About tin years back I was crew to a Sou' Boston market-boat. We was off Minot's Ledge wid a northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker'n burgoo. The ould man was dhrunk, his chin waggin' on the tiller, an' I sez to myself, 'If iver I stick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I'll show the saints fwhat manner o' craft they saved me out av.' Now, I'm here, as ye can well see, an' the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, that took me a month to make, I gave ut to the priest, an' he hung ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... lowered—he is no more a people—the tide of intellect has borne him down, and swept his humble wigwam from the earth. He, too, is changing: he now dwells, for the most part, in villages, in houses that cannot be moved away at his will or necessity; he has become a tiller of the ground, his hunting expeditions are prescribed within narrow bounds, the forest is disappearing, the white man is everywhere. The Indian must also yield to circumstances; he submits patiently. Perhaps ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... to let her run away before the wind with a straining jib. At all hazards it was necessary to fight her clear of that long ledge of rock, even if the wind threatened to tear the mast out of the boat. So Rob himself sprang down to the stern and took the tiller. ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... both of you came," shouted Madden, turning the tiller over to the men. "It's as stiff as cold molasses—how are the ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... this way, a long morning, with the sea like a mirror, and the sun as a great circle of red fire in the haze. Hour after hour we walked from the fore-hatch to the tiller, from the tiller to the fore-hatch, varying the exercise with a full inspection of every craft that showed above the horizon. At eight bells we lay a few miles farther westward, the island still visible to the starboard, but less distinct. At four bells, ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... the boat had gone to the farther corner of the lake, and it was necessary to brace her up or come about. I went aft to take the helm, and Kate followed me, taking a seat at my side. I put the tiller hard down, and the Splash came about, heading towards Cannondale. Our passenger was quick to discern the course, and ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... awoke it was broad daylight; so he looked to the tiller and got the boat's head a little up to the wind, and then gazed about him with the sleep still in his eyes. And as his eyes took in the picture before him he could not refrain a cry; for lo! there arose up great and ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... the beach; and the man who was ashore gave him an arm on board, and then shoved off and leaped into the bows himself. Northmour took the tiller; the boat rose to the waves, and the oars between the tholepins sounded crisp and measured in ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... teeth. He of the stern lashed the tiller amidships, and crept forward, aiding the other to push out the long boom ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... bringing with it the flavour that a seaman loves. After fully fifteen minutes' severe tugging at the oars, the barge drew near enough to permit the black mass of the Caesar to be seen. For some time, Lord Geoffrey, who had seated himself at the tiller,—yoke-lines were not used a century since,—steered by the top-light of the rear-admiral; but now the maze of hamper was seen waving slowly to and fro in the lurid heavens, and the huge hull became ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... little time, every soul on board looking upon the present minute as his last, for there was nothing to be seen but breakers all around us. However, a mountainous sea hove her off from thence; but she presently struck again, and broke her tiller. In this terrifying and critical juncture, to have observed all the various modes of horror operating according to the several characters and complexions amongst us, it was necessary that the observer himself should have been free from all impressions of danger. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... a leading proposition and a subordinate ("whereas", etc.)' Madvig, 358, Obs. 3. The underlying idea in this use is generally cause, sometimes concession. — PER FOROS 'over the deck'. — ILLE: for the omission of sed or autem (asyndeton adversativum) see n. on 3 librum, etc. — CLAVUM: 'tiller'. With this passage Lahmeyer well compares what Cicero says of himself in Fam. 9, 15, 3 sedebamus in puppi et clavum tenebamus; nunc autem vix est in sentina locus. — VELOCITATE: velocitas and celeritas differ ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the world was of no use. It was a case of the island or the deep sea, and, putting the boat on the starboard tack, he lit his pipe and leaned back with the tiller in the crook of his arm. His keen eyes had made out from the deck of the brig an opening in the reef, and he was making to run the dinghy abreast of the opening, and then take to the ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... than even!—with you, dear lady," he promised, releasing his tiller to shake his fist at Miss Herron's unconscious and unbending figure, "if it takes all summer. I wonder if she could have guessed. And it was planned ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... for their dear friend and kinsman, the Stukeleys could not part from him until he was safely launched upon his voyage. At the head of the stairs they were met by Captain King; at the foot of them a boat was waiting, as concerted, the boatswain at the tiller. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... there at the bottom of that green meadow, deep in grass and with the waving trees to hide us from observation, though there was not a house within a mile, nor, saving an occasional barge with a sleepy man hanging over the tiller, a boat to be seen, and as I watched the actions of my companions, I, for the first time in my life, felt the desire to imitate them ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... us in the state of imperfect sketches, for us to fill out and complete; it was for our skill and our labor patiently to induce the nourishing pulp which was the earliest form of capital, whose interest is always increasing in the primordial bank of the tiller of the soil. ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... it necessary to arrange a code of signals which would communicate between the tiller and the "man forward." This was accomplished by means of a line or messenger extending from one to the other, which was understood by the number of pulls given by it; three pulls, for instance, meant ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... carrying an umbrella above his stately head. There were more farewells in shallow water, more running to and fro; a brief reappearance of the undecided parrakeet. The young men took their places at the thwarts, the old chief settled the tiller on the rudder head, the women, girls, and children crowded in wherever they could, and then, amid shouts and cheers, the paddles dipped and the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... close to its edge. So we pulled on softly round the tongue of land, being maybe about fifty paces from the mound across the water. And when we saw the other side of Sigurd's resting place, the oars stayed suddenly, and the jarl, who held the tiller, swung the boat away from the shore, and I think I ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... Mr. P. went out fishing. He hired a boat, and a man to sail it, and while the man was getting ready to put off, Mr. P. took his seat in the bow and began to fix his lines. He always likes to sit in the bow. The tiller don't knock him so often in the back, and the boom don't bother his head so much. What he particularly wanted was to catch a devil-fish! He thought to himself what a splendid thing it would be to catch one of the big, VICTOR HUGO kind, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... yards and keep the vessel before the breeze, and then the good ship and the steady gale did the rest between them. The man at the wheel never vexed the old lady with any superfluous steering, but comfortably adjusting his limbs at the tiller, would doze away by the hour. True to her work, the Dolly headed to her course, and like one of those characters who always do best when let alone, she jogged on her way like a veteran old ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... temptation, had played Adam's part very creditably in the affair. For him Eden had been a soft warm place, and he was anxious to blame somebody—the woman for choice—for the loss of his comfort. He followed her out into the cold, to become, as you shall hear, like Adam, a tiller of the soil. ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... capitalists had seized upon the material advantages which the abundant supply of Irish milk afforded, and the green pastures of the "Golden Vein" were studded with snow white creameries which proclaimed the transfer of this great Irish industry from the tiller of the soil to the man of commerce. The new-comers secured the milk of the district by giving the farmer much more for his milk than it was worth to him, so long as he pursued the old methods of home manufacture. This induced ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... to the orders of the agent, the Pilgrim set sail for the windward, to be gone three or four months. She got under weigh with very little fuss, and came so near us as to throw a letter on board, Captain Faucon standing at the tiller himself, and steering her as he would a mackerel smack. When Captain T—— was in command of the Pilgrim, there was as much preparation and ceremony as there would be in getting a seventy-four under weigh. Captain ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... unwisely, with the proper labours of others. Nothing, for instance, is more annoying and dangerous even than to put forth your hand by way of helping a driver in managing his horses, or to interfere with the tiller of a boat at which a perfectly competent man is already seated. We have known the saying just quoted scores of times suffice to stop the unwise and gratuitous intermeddling of such as were disposed to interfere with what did not properly belong to them. "Bidh ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... on deck—the man at the helm, dozing peaceably with his arm over the useless tiller. Minute by minute the light grew, and the heat grew with it; and still the helmsman slumbered, the heavy sails hung noiseless, the quiet water lay sleeping against the vessel's sides. The whole orb of the sun was visible above the water-line, ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... and that I am making no knock against cultivation. We all know that it works under some conditions, and we all also know that there are some conditions in which it will not work. If I lived on level, sandy loam, I'd be a furious tiller of tree crops fifteen times a year. But I was born upon a rocky hill, and now I live upon another that is higher and rockier, and I don't believe in tilling it fifteen times a year. Must I abandon it, or adopt uses to its conditions? Out of these ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... jammed, so that those guns could not be used. Soon her smoke-stack came down and the smoke rising from its stump poured through the gratings on to the gun-deck, where the thermometer now stood at 120 deg.. At about the same time the tiller-chains were shot away from their exposed position over the after-deck. Losing thus the power of directing her movements, the Tennessee headed aimlessly down the bay, followed always by the unrelenting Chickasaw, under the pounding of whose heavy ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... the examination of all. Open them, and you will find the dark and greasy finger prints of half a century's handling. The quick hand of the land grabber has fluttered the leaves a million times; the damp clutch of the perturbed tiller of the soil has left traces of his calling ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... headway, that the unlucky Frenchmen began to entertain sweet delusive hopes. At last, after unheard-of efforts, the Saint-Ferdinand sprang forward, Gomez himself directing the shifting of the sheets with voice and gesture, when all at once the man at the tiller, steering at random (purposely, no doubt), swung the vessel round. The wind striking athwart the beam, the sails shivered so unexpectedly that the brig heeled to one side, the booms were carried away, and the vessel was completely ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... to destroy energy, to cut at the roots of thrift, to undermine all the best qualities of manhood, it would be impossible to imagine. The slave on the plantation could in time purchase his freedom. The tiller of the soil in Ireland found, on the contrary, that the greater his industry, the greater was the sum he had to pay for the right to exercise it. We saw that there never was any pretence of free contract in the feudal land-tenure of England; that there never ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... were at the oars; and we had been pulling, as I judged, for something over an hour, but easily, for the tide could hardly be felt, when Dr. Beauregard, who had taken the tiller, steered us in towards a beach which he announced to be the, perhaps, very choicest in the island ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... out of this," said Mr. Fison, who was trembling violently. He went to the tiller, while the boatman and one of the workmen seated themselves and began rowing. The other workman stood up in the fore part of the boat, with the boat-hook, ready to strike any more tentacles that might appear. Nothing else seems to have ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... "Prewitt Tiller bought my mother and I belonged to young master. In slavery I was a good-sized-young girl, mama said. Big enough to put the table cloths on the best I could. After freedom I did all the cookin' and ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... imposts of the lords of manors, and all the other odious burdens and heavy impediments on the prosperity of the thrifty and industrious part of the nation. If he had seen ever so clearly that one of the most important sides of the Revolution in progress was the rescue of the tiller of the soil, Burke would still doubtless have viewed events with bitter suspicion. For the process could not be executed without disturbing the natural course of things, and without violating his principle that all changes should find us with our minds tenacious of justice ...
— Burke • John Morley
... government of the country. When Yoritomo had thus raised himself to power, if the son that his peasant wife had born to him had proclaimed himself the son of the mighty prince, he would have been made lord over a province; but he took no thought of this, and remained a tiller of the earth, forfeiting a glorious inheritance; and his descendants after him lived as peasants in the same village, increasing in prosperity and in good repute ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... in any wind and a lifeboat in any sea, but they both want good and experienced men at the tiller. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... back down-stream, she would take the sculls and I the tiller, and I would tell her (in French) all about our school adventures at Brossard's and Bonzig, and the Lafertes, and the Revolution of February; and in that way she picked up a lot of useful and idiomatic Parisian which considerably astonished Fraeulein Werner, the German ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... return, she went down to the riverside and seated herself on one of the benches. Many boats were going by, a majority of them containing only two persons—a young man who pulled, and a girl who held the strings of the tiller. Some of these couples Monica disregarded; but occasionally there passed a skiff from which she could not take her eyes. To lie back like that on the cushions and converse with a companion who had nothing of the shop ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... the coast. About thirty pirates, scattered in the rigging, followed every movement of the boat, and took the bearings of certain landmarks which would allow them to approach without danger. The boat was not more than two cables-lengths off the islet when she stopped. The man at the tiller stood up and looked for the best place ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... steersman for many years of our Lord, ever since the time of the skipper's late father. He had become as if glued to the tiller, and many could scarcely imagine the old brig with a ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... turn after turn of the stiff hempen cable that held the felucca to her anchor, until the last turn was gone and the flakes went writhing and twisting out through the hawse-hole; then, as the end disappeared with a splash I dashed aft and rammed the tiller hard over to port—noticing, as I did so, that a large boat, pulling eight oars, was less than a hundred fathoms distant from us, and coming up to us hand over hand. Then, catching a turn of the main-sheet round a cleat, I jumped forward again to where the two seamen ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... his companion to take up the oars, and then shoved off, leaping lightly on the stern-sheets where he could handle the tiller. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... dissimulations under guise of public interest. The aristocracy presented to the plebeian farmers, established by the lex Sempronia, a means of promptly and easily satisfying their passions. They had never earned their little farms, nor did they appreciate the independence of the tiller of the soil. Unaccustomed to farm labor,[8] and the plodding unexciting life of the Roman agricola, they made haste to abandon a toilsome husbandry, the results of which seemed to them slow and uncertain, and with the pieces of silver ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... Selborne smoked a cigarette before we returned to the deck. The skipper was at the tiller, but she did not relieve him. She was in a lazy mood, and I arranged some cushions to make her comfortable. We were ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... secured to the inside of the inner ceiling of the gun deck. The rudders are as shown in the Danish drawing, and it is supposed that they were operated ferryboat fashion, one at each end of the vessel. Hence, each pair of rudders was toggled together by a cross-yoke. This was probably operated by a tiller (possibly the cross-yokes and tillers were of iron) pivoted under the beams of the gun deck close to the ends of the ship. Tiller ropes led from a tackle under the gun-deck through trunks to the spar deck, where the wheels were placed. This allowed proper sweep to the tillers and operation ...
— Fulton's "Steam Battery": Blockship and Catamaran • Howard I. Chapelle
... thankful to have finished the voyage in safety, that she took thankfully everything else, even lying awake. It was a wild night. The wind rose soon after they reached Bridgeport, and swept furiously over the boat, rattling the tiller chains, and making Fleda so nervously alive to possibilities that she got up two or three times to see if the boat were fast to her moorings. It was very dark, and only by a fortunately-placed lantern, she could see a bit of the dark wharf and one of the posts belonging ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... something: the western tribes certainly used hemp and flax as materials for weaving, and when the stuff was woven the women made it into garments by the use of the needle. Thus we get a certain division of trades or occupations. There were the tiller of the soil, the herdsman, the smith who forged the tools and weapons of bronze, the joiner or carpenter who built the houses, and the weaver who made the clothing required for protection against a climate which was usually cold. Then there was also the boat-builder, for the Aryans had boats, ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... guy, and hollered to Bill to go ahead. She went chuckety-chuck, chuckety-chuck for half a dozen turns; then she slowed down soon as she struck the full weight, and began to pant like an old horse climbin' a hill. All this time the Colonel was callin' out from where he stood near the tiller: 'She'll never lift it, Captain—she'll never ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... that came on board apprised Spike fully of the state in which he was now placed, and by a desperate effort, he clutched the tiller, and got the yawl again before the wind. This could not last, however. Little by little, his hold relaxed, until his hand relinquished its grasp altogether, and the wounded man sunk into the bottom of the stern-sheets, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... deep with a shifting, noisy cargo that lifted white noses and huddled broad, woolly backs—in fact, nothing less extraordinary than fifteen fat Southdown sheep and a sober-faced collie-dog. The crew of this remarkable craft consisted of a sinewy, bearded man of forty-five who minded sheet and tiller in the stern, and a boy of fourteen, tall and broad for his age, who was constantly employed in soothing and restraining ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... expert a Thames waterman, that he was quite able to manage the boat without a steersman, and Charley was nearly his equal. But there is some amusement in steering, and Katie was allowed to sit between the tiller-ropes. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... had predicted, was nearly due south. As the ketch made its way out from the mouth of the river, and the wide expanse of water opened before them, the boys were filled with delight. They had taken their seats, one on each side of the skipper, who was at the tiller. ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... process. The king himself would play the executioner; and his blows were dealt by stealth, and with the help and countenance of none but his own wives. These were his oarswomen; one that caught a crab, he slew incontinently with the tiller; thus disciplined, they pulled him by night to the scene of his vengeance, which he would then execute alone and return well pleased with his connubial crew. The inmates of the harem held a station hard for us to conceive. Beasts of draught, and driven by the fear of death, they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stepped right forward; but no sail. She was full of people. I counted five sitting, all white with snow—one by the mast, three amidships, and one in the stern sheets, steering. At least, he had a hand on the tiller: but the people had given over pulling, and the boat without steerage-way was drifting broadside-on towards the shore with the ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... first, but she tuck that out o' me in a day or two. If I put the helm only so much as one stroke to starboard, she guv' a tug at the tow-rope that brought the wind dead aft again; so I've gi'n it up, and lashed the tiller ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a number of things we can do to make soil moisture more available to our summer vegetables. The most obvious step is thorough weeding. Next, we can keep the surface fluffed up with a rotary tiller or hoe during April and May, to break its capillary connection with deeper soil and accelerate the formation of a dry dust mulch. Usually, weeding forces us to do this anyway. Also, if it should rain during summer, we can ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... which gave us confidence was Hall's coolness, now that the danger was unmistakable. He neither allowed himself to get flurried nor alarmed, but sat with closed lips watching the sail—one hand on the tiller and the other grasping the sheet, ready to let it go at a ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed |
